There seems to be general consensus that the spec won't allow both
block-level and AREA in the same MAP. Which is a shame - block-level
content seems a better way to go in the long run. In the short term,
putting in block-level links means that the links are displayed, but
the imagemap doesn't work. Which will not recommend it to authors...
If we could put in both block-level and AREA, then we would have to
change the specification or violate the 'use a valid w3c technology where
possible' rule, which I wouldn't do for this. There is however no reason
why that can't be done in the next lot of HTML and the UA guidelines
Charles McCathieNevile
On Tue, 17 Nov 1998, Jason White wrote:
> The HTML 4.0 specification defines the content model of the MAP element
> as:
>
> <!ELEMENT MAP - - ((%block;)+ | AREA+)
>
> On my interpretation, this means that MAP can contain either one or more
> block-level elements, or one or more AREA elements, but not a mixture of
> AREA and block-level elements. My understanding is that the SGML | symbol
> represents an exclusive or, from which this conclusion follows
> straightforwardly.